Initiatives in Other Countries

“The economic efficiency of Australia’s centralised water utilities is rapidly declining – and consumers are paying for it. At a macroeconomic level (household welfare across the economy), grid water costs of households in Melbourne, Adelaide and South East Queensland have jumped by up to 180 per cent over the past decade, while water usage has increased by less than 10 per cent,” wrote Peter Coombes.

“Other languages like French and German often use more exact terms than English for 'stormwater' and 'wastewater', and this changes how relationships and worth are perceived,” states Robert Hicks. “The reason why other languages use more exact terms relates to the structural nature of those languages.

“Business-as-usual is now no longer possible with the crisis that is faced by our global water resources,” wrote Rylan Dobson. “The actions that will secure our water future will be more locally driven. Referred to as either context-based or science-based sustainability, there is a greater need for the business community and watershed users to better understand their individual local boundaries and directly their actions in order to ensure they operate within these boundaries.”

“There have been many changes in our approach to urban water management in Australia since the establishment of the centralised and separate water supply, stormwater and wastewater paradigm in the 1800s,” stated Peter Coombes. “Urban water cycle management starts with the integration of land and water planning across time horizons and spatial scales. It must be cognisant of likely advances in science and professional practice over the next 30 years.”

“A history of top down management of water in Australia was challenged by drought. Concerned citizens called for implementation of bottom up strategies and inclusion in the decision making process. It was an emerging insight that there were no ‘silver bullet’ single solutions for water management. Both bottom-up and top-down approaches were needed,” wrote Peter Coombes.

“The easy going ‘she’ll be right mate’ culture of Australians masks strong aversion to change ‘we’ve always done it this way’. Our water management is, mostly, a centralised top down (driven by institutions) process. In contrast, Canadians have a bottom up (driven by people) discussion ‘let’s talk about this’ about ideas – consensus via non-government organisations and community governance,” wrote Peter Coombes.

“The definition of ‘water’ is not typically a controversial subject. But….. The final rule for WOTUS takes into account the ‘interconnectedness’ of tributaries, wetlands and other waters to downstream waters. This means the federal government would substantially increase federal control of Minnesota’s lakes, streams, wetlands and drainage ditches,” wrote Rich Sve, local government politician.

“A new report — Water Sensitive Urban Design in the UK — reinterprets the WSUD concept for the UK and its conclusions might best be summed up simply as: for too long, we have been designing water out of our cities when we should have been designing it in,” writes Jonathan Nettler.